EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



I have used the word change where many might 

 have expected to meet the word development. 

 Reasons for this preference will, I hope, abundantly 

 appear hereafter. Development almost implies a 

 goal, as does more definitely the term progress. 

 This latter term, bequeathed to him by the older 

 liberalism, was first employed by Spencer, as in 

 the essay "Progress: Its Law and Cause." But 

 he abandoned it and adopted the term evolution, 1 

 since the moral connotation of the former word 

 rendered it inapplicable in the wide sense which 

 he needed. The case is similar with the word 

 development, which also suggests a goal. Now 

 evolution, as we know it, though it may appear 

 in our own time to be working towards " some far- 

 off divine event," yet appears to have such only 

 as a proximate and temporary goal. The great 

 rhythm of the universe may show such a crest, but, 

 as far as we can see, the wave must travel on, and 

 the upward movement be followed by a down- 

 ward in this endless cycle which the synthetic 

 philosophy, like so many of its ancient Oriental 

 predecessors, reveals to us. In a future section 2 

 we must discuss the prophecies of this philosophy. 



Meanwhile we may observe that a doctrine of 

 sempiternal change must be wholly unattractive 

 to many minds. The fact of likeness to the past, 

 which we call heredity in biology and the conserva- 

 tive principle in politics, makes appeal to nearly 



1 In 1857; see Autobiography, I., 503. 



2 See section VII., "Dissolution." 



8 



